Moby Dick (1956) on Netflix
Ishmael signs onto the Pequod with the harpooner Queequeg. Once at sea, Captain Ahab promises gold to whoever first sights Moby Dick, the white whale that took his leg.
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Trailer
Plot summary
In New Bedford, a young sailor named Ishmael takes a room at the Spouter Inn and agrees to share a bed with an absent stranger, the tattooed harpooner Queequeg; the two become friends and sign on together with the whaling ship Pequod. The owners hire them for a fraction of the voyage's oil profits, and the captain, Ahab, stays out of sight while the mates Starbuck, Stubb and Flask run the ship. Ahab finally appears on deck with a leg replaced by a jawbone prosthesis and nails a gold coin to the mast, promising it to the first man who sights Moby Dick, the white sperm whale that crippled him. Ahab has charted the whale's likely path and turns the voyage toward it, while Starbuck argues the ship should hunt whales for oil.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Moby Dick (1956)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The white whale was built by Dunlop in Stoke-on-Trent: 75 ft long, 12 tons, and needing 80 drums of compressed air and a hydraulic system to stay afloat. It came loose from its tow-line and drifted away in a fog, and Gregory Peck confirmed in 1995 that he had been aboard the prop.
- John Huston had long wanted to make Moby-Dick and intended his own father, the actor Walter Huston, to play Ahab, but Walter died in 1950; Gregory Peck was surprised to get the part, which the studio's financing deal required be filled by a "name" actor.
- Peck and Huston planned to film Melville's Typee in 1957, but the funding fell through and the two fell out; Peck discovered he had not been Huston's choice for Ahab but had been forced on the director by the Mirisch brothers to secure financing, and felt Huston had deceived him.
- Youghal in Co. Cork stood in for New Bedford, and its local government made John Huston a freeman of the town in thanks; craftsmen dredged the harbor by hand and dressed telephone poles with canvas to look like ships' masts, while nearly twenty thousand people watched the summer 1954 filming.
- Steven Spielberg's original plan for Jaws was to introduce the Ahab-like Quint (Robert Shaw) by showing him watching the 1956 Moby Dick and laughing at its inaccuracies, but Gregory Peck denied permission to use the footage, uncomfortable with his own performance.
- Gregory Peck's last speech was delivered while he rode the white whale's hump, with a hole drilled in the whale's side so he could hide his real leg; the studio also built a life-size Moby jaw and head with working eyes that moved like a rocking horse.
- For a look reminiscent of old whaling prints, a black and white print was superimposed on a color print, giving an effect similar to a bleach bypass.
- Youghal's pub, originally called Linehan's, appears in the film and was renamed Moby Dick's shortly after filming; Gregory Peck donated his prop whalebone leg to the bar, where it remains on display.
